


Just a Mask

by kenophilic



Category: Mirrormask (2005)
Genre: ?? - Freeform, Ambiguous Relationships, Dissociation, F/M, Identity Issues, ambiguous first names, hahaha you can't tell me either of these two are nt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 18:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4360565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenophilic/pseuds/kenophilic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He always ended up dazed after shows. Sometimes a bit confused. Forgot who he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Mask

The light was almost scorching. He couldn't tell his face from the mask.

 

_Did he have a face?_

 

All he could feel were his feet against the ground and smooth, curved plastic in his palms. From the eye holes, he could see a blurred, swaying image of a girl dressed in black across from him.

 

Sunlight,  _was it sunlight_? It shone on her face, reflecting everything and nothing, all around the room, blinding him for a few dazzling moments.

 

_Strange, sunlight in such a dark room._

 

When he could see again, he watched her step forward.

 

_Not sunlight, spotlights._

 

Spotlights, shining on the both of them.

 

She tilted her head to the side, a slow, lazy, curious motion.

 

_Innocent, predatory. A black cat positioning to pounce on a toy._

 

She held out her hand.

 

Unconsciously, he reached his own out, and the weight from his palm slid outwards, up, into the air.

 

Into her hand.

 

_He could see himself in her face._

 

She threw it back.

 

He threw another.

 

They continued, for several long, dizzying minutes.

 

_Hours? Days?_

 

He could dance with her like this, tossing back and forth to each other for an eternity.

 

_Mirrored movements in her mirrored mask._

 

He couldn't feel anything, couldn't even see the weights that landed against his fingertips. What were they? He didn't mind. They landed perfectly each time, as though only following pathways that tied the two's hands together.

 

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, our lllloovely Princess of Darkness, and our veeerrrry most important man, Heeeelen, aaand Valentiiiine...!”_

 

The act ended.

 

It was a blur, from the stage to the back. He couldn't tell if the sweat was dripping down his face, or over his mask.

 

_Did he have a face?_

 

Yes.

 

Yes, he did.

 

Fingertips decorated with darkness came to rest on his shoulders. He looked up, briefly coming out of his daze.

 

_The queen._

 

No, Helena's mother, Joanne. All dressed up and ready to go on stage.

 

_Light or dark?_

 

Dark, by the looks of it. Helena had designed the costume. Of course, to match her own character. The audience loved it, watching the Queen of Shadows crawl and twist along streams of darkness above them, the most graceful spider.

 

Her hands were on his shoulders.

 

She didn't shove, didn't squeeze. She had a way of halting people with the lightest touch. She was powerful beyond measure.

 

Sometimes he was afraid of her.

 

He wasn't sure why. Funny, really, she'd never done anything to him. He'd never done anything wrong.

 

It took him a few moments, but he snapped into reality again to hear her saying his name. Once, twice, three times before he realized that he was to respond.

 

“Are you alright?” She asked underwater, the concern on her face clear even behind the mask.

 

_Strange look for her._

 

Was it?

 

“I'm... I'm fine...?” It was more a question than an answer.

 

Joanne gave him a sympathetic smile. She knew how he could get after performances, and he'd been busy all day. Never a problem, really. He always ended up dazed after shows. Sometimes a bit confused. Forgot who he was. When she spoke, her voice was muddled.

 

“You're off for the rest of the night, Valentine and Helen aren't making any more appearances for the rest of the show.”

 

_Valentine and Helen were in a show?_

 

“You can go take that off and rest,” she told him, patting his shoulder before disappearing again.

 

He stood there for a few moments. Breathing. It was all he could really do for now.

 

He wasn't sure how long he stood there.

 

_Hours? Days?_

 

Another pair of hands on him, this time his forearms.

 

He blinked, turning his head down to see the smiling face of the Princess, pulling his arms closer to her as she stepped backwards.

 

_Not the Princess._

 

Just Helena _._

 

_Just Helena._

 

He visibly jolted in surprise, as though he'd only just noticed her.

 

“What are you still doing over here? C'mon, let's go get you all cleaned up...!” She told him as she guided him through the forest of people and props and what seemed to be a gorilla. Slowly, he found that the lights weren't quite as bright, the sounds weren't quite as muffled, and the shape of her hand against his arm was more defined than it'd been a moment ago.

 

“Ah, right, right...!” He tsked softly, almost disappointed with himself for not having thought of that earlier.

 

He found that it was easier to pay attention to his surroundings, busying himself with smiling at other performers and wishing the next act good luck. His heart was still pounding, but he didn't feel very nervous anymore. He'd gotten a bit anxious before their little piece, but now he could barely even remember it. It felt like it'd only been a few seconds long. In fact, he couldn't even recall what they'd been supposed to do. He was sure he did well, though. Helena was happy, so it must've gone fine.

 

He smiled. It felt strange under the mask.

 

_Mask?_

 

Mask. Just a mask.

 

He only realized that once he noticed Helena standing in front of him again, beginning to pull it from his face. He was grateful that he realized what it was at the last second. It'd shocked him. She had been pulling off his face.

 

_Would've bled._

 

_Would've screamed._

 

_Would've died._

 

_Would've_

 

_Would have_

 

_Would_

 

_Would_

 

“—you keep still, Valentine?” Helena laughed, wiping the rest of the paint off of the exposed skin where the mask had blended into the rest of his face.

 

He screwed his nose up, closing his eyes tightly and complaining as he tried to snatch the rag from her. “I'm not a child!” He laughed back at her. “I can clean m'self up, you just do your own!”

 

She stuck her tongue out at him, pushing the rag into his hands. “Honestly, Valentine...!” She groaned, exasperated and over exaggerated, barely containing the grin hiding beneath as she started pulling her costume off. “How do you expect me to _not_ do that when you're just spacing off all the time!”

 

He wasn't looking. Of course not. He couldn't look. Not even in the mirror he used to clean the rest of the white paint from his jaw. Of course, he didn't watch the way her spine curved as she pulled off the black dress, leaving her in nothing but her underclothes and the pajama bottoms she'd tugged on while he wasn't looking. What a nice dress it was, though. Just like the one in her drawings, almost. It wasn't quite there. A bit more practical, maybe. Better for being on stage, instead of in a throne room.

 

_In a bedroom._

 

_On the stairs._

 

_Juggling with Va_

 

“I do not space off!” He answered, a moment too late. She'd already looked back, raising a skeptical eyebrow and smirking at him. She pulled on her shirt.

 

Valentine hesitated, still staring at himself in the mirror.

 

_Himself?_

 

“Why do you always call me that, even when we're not on stage?” He blurted out.

 

He immediately wished he could take it back.

 

She stopped, one hand—holding a comb—dropping a bit lower as her face fell. “What do you mean?”

 

He waited a moment, trying to see if the meaning would come to him. “I don't know,” he finally admitted. “You just know that's not what your mother calls me, right?”

 

Helena gave a bittersweet smile. Far too much like Helen. “I know. But she doesn't know what I know.”

 

She turned around, pointing the comb at him. “You're Valentine,” she announced, determined.

 

He looked up at her, no longer in the mirror. “I'm Valentine,” he repeated, even more determined than her.

 

“And... you always have been...” Her voice softened. She lowered the comb. “Don't... don't you remember?”

 

He was sure he did.

 

He did.

 

Didn't he?

 

_How could he forget?_

 

The darkness.

 

_The sphinxes._

 

The books.

 

_And the really useful one._

 

The streets.

 

_The mirrorma_

 

“You... you do, right...?”

 

She was holding it.

 

Her stage mask. The mirrormask. The one from her drawings, from her stories that she stayed up all night telling him every detail of, that he spent hours and hours soaking into his very being until he couldn't tell the paper from his own hands, couldn't tell if the pictures were portraits of him or drawings of a man she wanted more than anything to be real. Of course he was real, though. He was Valentine. He didn't have any other name. He was Valentine, and he was a very important man. A very important man to Helena. He couldn't remember being anyone else. Why should he bother?

 

She kept turning it over in her hands, not looking at him.

 

He remembered how to speak.

 

“'Course I do. I'd never forget that.”

 

Her face grew warm again, brightening up.

 

He felt his chest do the same.

 

“Thank you, Valentine...”

 

**Author's Note:**

> so who the heck knows what's up with either of them but i deeply hc valentine as having some serious dissociation/identity issues, always have  
> helena is a sweet girl


End file.
